


Through Smoke

by susurrant



Series: Roads [12]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dean Has Powers, M/M, Sam Winchester's Demonic Powers, Unrelated Winchesters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-17
Updated: 2017-04-17
Packaged: 2018-10-19 22:17:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10649169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/susurrant/pseuds/susurrant
Summary: “There’s a bigger picture here, Dean. You and Sam, you have no idea what you risked by going into Hell. The chain of events you’ve put in motion.” He shakes his head. “My kind haven’t walked the earth for 2,000 years, and we’re down here fighting a war that you started.”





	Through Smoke

* * *

 

He’s alone. He doesn’t know how long it’s been, but he hasn’t seen another soul since the earth had trembled and cracked around him. He’d felt it happen, rather than seen it - in the dark. 

It’s a rare thing to be alone, or at least, he thinks it is. No smiling black-eyed Dean, taunting him with the kiss of a blade. No pale ghost of Mary, ripped open above him and begging John to kill their only child before it was too late. No Sam, incandescent with stolen power and raining down ruin on city after city with the wave of his hand.

No demon, offering up the handle of knife that’s his for the taking, if only he would… if only.

Alone.

There’s a crack in the cell door. He can’t see it, but he can feel it - traces it with the pads of his fingers from top to bottom. He could probably break through if he tried.

He’s not sure he wants to try. It’s not fear that keeps him in place, but a bone-weary exhaustion and the certainty that comes with knowing that wherever he goes, he’s still just as trapped.

There are voices now on the other side of the door. Shouts and screams, a crash. Must be one helluva fight out there. The door rattles on its hinges. He hears Dean calling for him, desperate and in pain.

He doesn’t answer. Hasn’t fallen for that one in months.

The door explodes inwards, followed by smoke and soot and debris.  He flattens himself against the wall just inside the doorway, watches (something shaped like) a man stumble inside.

It looks up, eyes searching in the not-quite dark. “Dad?”

He just barely hears it. There’s an unholy racket coming from the hall, louder now without the door to block it out. John sinks down to a crouch, not taking his eyes off the intruder. Shaggy hair, long limbs - wearing Sam’s face, speaking with his voice.

It doesn’t see him yet.

“Dad, where are you?”

Its eyes haven’t adjusted to the dark yet, he thinks. He reaches out, carefully wraps his fingers around a heavy metal bracket from the pile of what used to be his cell door. The intruder starts to turn.

John lunges.

The bracket makes a satisfying _thunk_ against (not)Sam’s skull, and he (it) staggers back against the far wall. John turns and stumbles for the door. The passageway is mayhem; one side has collapsed into rubble and the rest of it is filled with indistinct forms crashing and rebounding against each other. Dean is smack in the middle of it, half hidden in the grip of something else, ink-black smoke pouring out of his palms straight into a brilliant white light that flashes and contracts.

John brings his arm up to shield his eyes from the scene, stumbling back away from it. There are hands on his shoulders, pulling him back. Turning him around.

 _Sam_.

But not one he’s ever seen down here before. This one is ragged, smears of dirt and blood on his face, one hand wrapped up in a makeshift bandage and held curled in close to his chest. His eyes are clear and just the way John remembers them, before they turned.

“Dad! It’s me!” Sam is yelling.  John blinks. He was in Wichita - was waiting for Gordon to show up. He drops the bracket, momentarily forgotten.

“Where’s Gordon?”

Sam’s expression twists. “Gordon? Dad, he’s dead. He’s been dead. Is he - he’s down here too?”

“No, at the diner - ”

“Listen,” Sam braces his hands on either side of John’s head. “We found Gordon, okay? We found him in Blue Earth, you and me and Dean. But we have to go, now. We’ve gotta get out of here.”

John shakes off Sam’s grip and turns back to the passageway, but Gordon isn’t there. And neither is Dean.

 

* * *

 

 

Dean rolls to his feet. His head is killing him and the only weapon he’s got is the useless little hoodoo pigsticker.

“It’s good to see you again, Dean.  We have work to do.”

“Listen buddy, I don’t know you.” 

“You don’t _remember_ me, there’s a difference.”

“Not from where I’m standing. Where the hell are we?”

“The assistant principal’s office at Hayes Elementary in Ada, Oklahoma.” The man gives Dean a careful, assessing look. “You don’t remember this either.”

“Nope.” Ada, Oklahoma? He only vaguely remembers the name, on a long list of towns and schools he’d blown through as a kid. In any case, the office didn’t look familiar. “Take me back down.”

“Back to Hell? I can’t do that. I have orders.”

“Too bad for you, I don’t give a shit about your orders. I’m out of here.”

Dean heads for the door, but when he opens it there’s nothing but a cinderblock wall behind it. He runs his hand over the wall. Feels solid.

 _Fuck_.

“You can’t leave.”

“Yeah, no shit.” The room has windows, but there’s a sort of warped halo effect around them that Dean is pretty sure means he has about as much chance of getting out that way as he does through the bricked-in doorway.

“You really don’t remember this? The memory was fairly potent, from what I could tell.”

“If you say so, sure why not.”

“The residual sulfur trail has faded, of course.” The man walks around behind the desk, tracing one hand over the surface. “This wasn’t the beginning, we’d have to go back thousands of years for that - but it seemed an important moment along the way. You do remember it, Dean. You may not want to, but you do.”

There’s a woman seated at the desk. She flips through a few files and then sits back for a moment, smiling. Dean waves a hand in front of her face, snaps his fingers. She doesn’t seem to notice him standing in front of her.

The phone on her desk buzzes and she picks up. “Send him in.”

A kid comes in the door, walking through the concrete wall like it’s nothing. Scuffed shoes, dirty jeans, and a sullen look on his face.

“Have a seat, Dean,” the woman says.

Dean whips around, looking from her to the kid, who’s slouching down in a chair that’s too big for him.

“Tommy McKinnon says you hit him in the lunchroom. What do you have to say about that?”

The kid mumbles an answer, arms crossed. Dean steps closer to the desk, a familiar prickle at the back of his neck. “Christo.”

The woman blinks, but it isn’t a flinch.

“That won’t work,” the man says. “This is memory, nothing more.”

“Why are you showing me this?”

“Because you need to remember.” He nods towards the kid in the chair. “You’re eight years old, you were called to this office for fighting with another student.”

“Yeah, so? That was 16 years ago.”

“Dean, we need to talk about this,” the man and woman both say as one. “Why did you hit Tommy McKinnon?”

The kid stays silent, but Dean answers for him. “‘Cause I was a kid and I was pissed off about something, why’s it matter?”

The kid is still sitting in the chair, kicking his heels against the chair legs and staring at the floor.

The man shakes his head. “You’re lying.”

“Maybe I am, maybe I’m not. Either way I’m done with this.”

Dean walks over to the windows, holds up a hand and presses against the barrier. He can’t quite see it if he looks straight on, but if he looks just out of the corner of his eye he can almost make out -

He gathers up the crackle of power in his veins, pushes it out through his fingertips, straight at the windows.

The man seems to realize what he’s doing just a second too late.

“ _Don’t!_ ”

The power rebounds, throws him ass over end across the room. He levers himself up on his elbows, shakes his head to clear the ringing.

The woman and the kid are still talking like nothing happened. But now eight-year-old Dean is sitting up in his chair, listening intently. Maybe it’s a concussion talking, but Dean thinks he can remember her now. He remembers her eyes.

The man seems to know the very second the memory slots back into place - a brief look of relief passes over his face, then concern.

Dean shuts his eyes. “Why did you bring me here?”

“You felt it - you could tell, even as a child. You were angry because you could tell something was missing. It’s why you picked fights, why you don’t like to stay in one place, even now. ”

“Oh please tell me this isn’t going to turn into some bullshit lost orphan therapy session.”

“No. A piece of you would’ve been missing whether you had a family or not. Or it was, until Azazel stepped in. He gave you borrowed power,” the man sneers as he says the words, “and even to this day you can feel that it doesn’t fit.”

Dean swallows; ignores the tingling in his fingertips. He doesn’t care that his power is borrowed, that sometimes it feels he’s like sharing his body with a separate, living thing. The power is a means to an end, and this guy - whoever he is, _what_ ever he is - yanked him away just seconds from the finish line.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t care. I need to go back down there. I’ve got one trip left, just let me go.”

The man’s eyes narrow.  “Six of my brothers died getting you out of there. Scores more are still down there, fighting to keep the legions of Hell at bay. What makes you think _you_ can drag John Winchester out of Hell on your own?”

“I’ve got Sam.”

“Sam is being taken care of.”

“Sam is - _what?_ What the hell does that mean?”

“Another unit is assigned to pull him out. You shouldn’t be worrying about Sam right now.”

“And what about John, you jackass? News flash, I didn’t need your help getting out of the pit, the whole point of us going in was to _get him out_. We were so fucking close, and you swoop in, whoever the hell you are, and you fucked everything up!”

The light in the room dims, electricity crackling across the ceiling as the man steps forward, right through desk like it’s not even there. He stops just inches in front of Dean.

“There’s a bigger picture here, Dean. You and Sam, you have no idea what you risked by going into Hell. The chain of events you’ve put in motion.” He shakes his head. “My kind haven’t walked the earth for 2,000 years, and we’re down here fighting a war that _you_ started.”

“Who the hell are you, anyway?”

“Castiel.”

“No, I mean - _what_ the hell are you?”

“I’m an Angel of the Lord.”

“Right. And you’re here because?”

“Because God commanded it. Because we have work for you."

 

* * *

 

 

They stumble into a run, away from the core of the battle. The tunnel worms its way around, back and forth in a weaving winding maze, heading ever farther downwards. Deeper into the pit.

John’s walked these tunnels before - or at least, he’s been made to think he has. Escaping to higher ground has always been too well guarded; not so much in the other direction. It may not be real, he knows that, but it feels real.

Like it always does.

The ground beneath them grows damp, and the tunnel shrinks until they’re walking single file, hunched down to keep their heads from scraping along the ceiling. Solid rock turns to crumbling limestone, then to clay. The tunnel gradually begins to open up, as their boots sink into the softening floor, each step a slog through water and mud.

The sounds of battle fade behind them, until the only sounds are their breaths and the sloshing of their boots through the water.

Sam keeps cutting glances back at him, reaching back to pull him along, like he’s checking to make sure John is still standing. When he isn’t looking, John stops, hunches over and rubs at his shoulder - the one that never heals right, no matter how many times he wakes up whole again. This time Sam catches him at it, looking back to check on him just as John is looking up to check on Sam’s progress ahead.

They’re silent for a long moment, staring at one another.

“Sam,” John says. He doesn’t even know where he would start. “How - ?”

Sam shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it. Dean and I figured it out, how to get you out without breaking the deal.”

 _Dean_. John looks back up the tunnel. Dean was there too, John saw him just for a moment. 

“He’s okay,” Sam says. “He must’ve gone topside to get clear of the fight. He’ll come back down to help when he can.”

Gone topside?  Sam talks about it like Dean stepped out for a smoke. _Not real after all_. He nods at Sam, feigns understanding.

They move in stops and starts, anchoring one another to yank each foot out of the icy muck, stuck up to the ankle in it now with each step they take.

Finally the tunnel opens up into an cavern, enormous dagger-sharp icicles hanging down from the ceiling, the floor flooded with water so still that it’s a perfect mirror of the cavern ceiling above. Dim amber light filters in from tunnels and crevices in the cavern, but the majority of the cavern is lit with a clear white light from below.

John stops at the tunnel opening, struck dumb to see something so beautiful in the very heart of the pit. Sam doesn’t stop though. Doesn’t even hesitate to look around, even though the sounds of the chaos above are back now - filtering through the other openings and tunnels, making the pin-sharp tips of the icicles above vibrate with each impact. Coming closer.

Sam wades through the water, towards the very center of the cavern without looking back. He’s in nearly up to his waist before he stops, hands held out, palms open over the water. He hesitates, then finally looks around.

John can see his expression as he turns, his face pinched like all the gears are turning at once. Sam says something under his breath, but he’s too far away for John to hear it.

“Sam?” John calls out quietly. He doesn’t know what else lurks in the tunnels, or in the water. He’s not eager to draw attention.

Sam doesn’t respond. Doesn’t even seem to hear him. John scans the cavern, eyes picking out the dark spots, the blind spots. Too many to track. He wades into the water, which somehow remains still despite their presence.

John is barely an arm’s reach away when Sam startles; seems to come back to himself.  His head whips around to look at John.

“This doesn’t feel right,” Sam says.

“It’s hell, nothing feels right.”

Sam’s mouth twists. “No, that’s what I mean though. It doesn’t feel like hell. This place - this isn’t supposed to be here.”

“We’re not supposed to be here either, Sam. We’ve got to get moving. Come on.”

John grabs Sam and tugs him along, and he follows reluctantly.

“You said you and Dean had a plan to get out of here?” John asks.

John isn’t buying it, whatever new scheme this is, but he’ll play along. He’s not proud of it, but he’ll take whatever false time he can get with a clear-eyed Sam, for however long he gets to have it, even if it is just another trick. This Sam is close enough to remind him of the real one; the one that’s alive right now because of the deal, somewhere far away.

“Yeah. We left markers on the way in. I can feel them. We just have to follow them back up.”

Just as he says it there’s a resounding crash from the tunnels above. The icicles above them quiver, threatening to fall. The impact rebounds through the chamber, seeming to echo back at them from below, followed by an almost delicate sound of tiny shards of ice cracking and falling into the water below.

“Then let’s get moving,” John says.

 

* * *

 

 

Dean rubs a hand over his face.

“Hold up, the _Apocalypse_? The four horsemen, pestilence, five-dollar-a-gallon-gas apocalypse?”

“Yes.”

“You’re serious about this?”

Castiel looks exasperated. “ _Yes_.”

“Uh huh. And the big man upstairs needs my help. Sure, why not. I’ll give G-man a hand. What does God want me to do?” Dean doesn’t try particularly hard to keep a straight face.

“You’re not taking this seriously.”

Poor guy actually sounds disappointed.

“Of course I’m not! Okay yeah, you blasted a bunch of demons and yanked me out of the pit, color me impressed, but you need to lay off sniffing the fairy dust, buddy. You’re not an angel of the lord. There’s no such thing as God.”

The office around them dissolves and Dean finds himself pinned against the wall of an empty warehouse, Castiel standing in front of him, head cocked to one side. A brilliant flash of light fills the space, Dean squints to see through the glare - two shadows rising up behind Castiel.  An enormous set of wings, unfurling.

Dean feels like his heart stops dead for a full minute as he stares.

The fury in Castiel’s expression fades, along with the light and the shadow of wings, although the power holding Dean refuses to let go.

Castiel bows his head for a few moments to gather himself, then looks up. “You don’t remember, but you will soon enough. That doesn’t matter right now. What matters is that we need your help.”

“Not to go all cliche on you, but why me?”

“Because you’re the only one who can.”

Dean’s world tips sideways, feels like his entire mind is sliding over the edge of the abyss. He gulps, swallowing air and squeezing his eyes shut against the feeling of vertigo. He doesn’t doubt that Castiel is one powerful motherfucker, but he’s no angel of the lord - can’t be. New day, same old demon crap.

He must’ve stumbled into some serious shit in the pit with Sam to get nabbed by this thing. He could only hope that Sam and John were doing okay on their own. At least they were together, last that Dean saw.

Castiel is standing silent now, the fury in his expression fading to something slightly perturbed.

“Good things do happen, Dean.”

“Not in my experience.”

Castiel’s eyes narrow and he he raises one hand. Dean tries to twist away, but doesn’t get far enough to avoid the touch to his forehead.

The world goes white.

 

* * *

 

 

Sam is in the lead again, picking out the tunnels that seem to take them the farthest away from the fighting. John follows close behind, eyeing the hilt of a crude knife Sam has tucked into his belt. Something about it makes his skin crawl.

They pause frequently, listening and watching for any signs of activity in the tunnel ahead.

Eventually it sounds like they must be almost level with the worst of it, but it’s hard to tell with the way sound echoes through the labyrinth. Sam comes to a halt, scans the stone walls around him and pulls out the knife.

John can’t figure why Sam wouldn’t keep his only weapon out in front of him as they were walking. He knows taught his boys better than that. Then again, the thing barely even looks sharp.  Sharp enough, though, for Sam to scratch a rough symbol into the wall then prick the palm of his injured hand. He dabs one finger in the blood that wells up, wincing a little.

“When Dean comes back down, this’ll point him the way so he can find us,” he says.

Sam paints over the scratched symbol with the blood. As he finishes the mark, the scratches and blood disappear into the stone.

John reaches out one hand, clamps it around Sam’s wrist and Sam looks up, like he’s been pulled out of a trance. Not wanting to risk any sound, he cuts his eyes away to the tunnel ahead and then back to Sam.

Realization dawns on Sam’s face. The near constant racket from battle echoing all around them has fallen completely silent. Sam glances at the mark and then back at John. No way to know for sure, but they belatedly realize - there’s nothing to say that Dean is the only one’s that could feel the marker, glowing like a beacon.

Without a word, they start to run.

 

* * *

 

 

Dean comes to in a field.

The same one he sees in his sleep, the same one he’s been trying to forget ever since the first time he laid eyes on it. Castiel is already walking towards the edge of the clearing while Dean is still blinking away the hazy spots in his vision.

He looks around, expecting another memory; a vision of the Impala pulled off on the side of the road, he and Sam dirt-streaked and sweating, digging in silence. So much for ‘ _good things do happen, Dean.’_ The field is empty except for Castiel.

As Dean watches, Castiel waves his hand and the tall grass around the grave flattens - blown outwards in an instant. A plume of dry earth fills the air, then vanishes.

“Why are we here?” he asks.

But Castiel doesn’t answer. Instead he’s staring down into John’s grave, at the body wrapped up in a once-starched white motel sheet. Dean keeps his eyes on Castiel, still waiting for an answer. He doesn’t look down.

“Hey!” Dean snaps his fingers. “Ex-nay on the magical mystery tour crap, buddy. I’m not interested.”

Castiel’s eyes cut over to look at Dean, and his hand twitches down in the direction of the grave. Dean’s heart stops as the edge of the sheet twitches, looking down despite himself. Not enough to see ( _the body_ ).

“ _Don’t - !_ ” he yells, reaching fruitlessly for Castiel’s arm to yank it back down.

“You want to drag John Winchester’s tattered soul from the pit, you should look at the vessel you’re going to be shoving it in.”

Castiel whips back around to look down at the grave, and a gust of wind follows his gaze. The makeshift shroud tears down the middle, the edges flying open to expose the corpse.

Dean’s stomach drops first, and the rest of his body follows. John had been plenty torn up when they’d found him, and two months in the ground hadn’t helped any. He’s seen plenty of dead bodies in his line of work, too many to count. But always strangers.

Dean wasn’t prepared for this, didn’t want to see; didn’t want to _know_.

He swallows down bile, drags his eyes away from the thing in the grave. ( _Not John_.) Kneeling in the grass, he looks up at Castiel.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because I need you to understand what I’m offering. You can’t take a soul from Hell and shove it back into that body. Even if he isn’t driven insane locked inside his own decaying corpse, all of nature - heaven and earth itself would reject the abomination.

“I assume you’ve heard of unholy ground?”

Dean nods.

“Everything he touched would be marked the same way. The very ground beneath his feet would wither and die.”

“You’re trying to tell me we can’t save him? Hate to disappoint you, but you’re not the first. Hell, you’re not even the tenth.”

Castiel shakes his head. “That’s not what I mean. It’s true, you can’t save him - not on your own, you or Sam. But I’m not telling you to give up, I’m offering my help.”

Without explaining further, the man crouches down by the side of the grave and reaches out a hand. A brilliant light light pours forth from his open palm, seeming to almost soak into the body beneath, so bright than Dean holds up one arm to shield his eyes.

It only lasts for a moment, but when Castiel lowers his hand, John’s body is whole again. The shroud around him is still stained and dirty, his clothing still shredded from the hellhounds’ attack, but underneath is clean, new skin. Dean sucks in a sharp breath.

“Is he - ”

“Not yet. I merely reversed the decomposition and healed the fatal wounds. He still needs the breath of life, and his soul restored.”

Dean doesn’t need to see the strings attached to know they exist. “And you’ll help me in return for what, exactly?”

“There’s a weapon, something powerful enough to stop Apocalypse, but it’s hidden from us. We need your help to find it. If we don’t, the world ends.”

“No offense, but if you’re really an angel of the almighty then why can’t you find it yourself? Why do you need me?”

“Because it used to belong to you.”

Dean searches his memory, but no special apocalypse-ending weapons come to mind. Sure, the Colt was special, but that wasn’t lost - it was back at Bobby’s. Dean kind of doubted that’s what Castiel meant anyway. The Colt can kill a demon, sure, but stopping the apocalypse?

“Okay,” Dean says.

“Okay?" 

“Okay, I’m in. You help me bring John back topside, do whatever it is you do to wake him up, and I’ll help you find your weapon - my weapon, whatever. Just tell me what to do.” 

Castiel nods slowly. “There’s something I need to show you first.”

 

* * *

 

 

Dean is standing in the middle of what used to be marshland, at the base of the tower. Castiel is a little ways off, on the edge of the crevasse that had nearly swallowed Sam and Dean when it had split open beneath them.

“Where are they?” Dean asks.

Castiel hesitates, as if listening for something. “They’re heading this way.”

“Okay, so let’s go.”

“Not yet.”

Castiel steps closer to the edge, looking down. “You were here when it happened.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Hell was carved out by God himself, built to last for millennia. Now those fortifications are beginning to fail. This was the first sign, the beginning of the end.”

“Sounds like God had a shitty contractor. You should file a complaint.”

“You think this is joke? There’s a reason we’re here now, walking among you for the first time in 2,000 years. If the barriers fail, literal Hell on earth follows. Millions will die, and those that survive...”

But Dean’s not buying it. “Oh yeah? So last year when Yellow Eyes cracked open the devil’s gate and let loose hundreds of black-eyed sons-of-bitches on the world, that wasn’t a good enough reason to make an appearance? Apparently not, because I don’t remember seeing you there. It was just me, and a gun.”

“And you don’t think God had something to do with that?”

“No, I don’t. You know why? Look around, you see any demons left down here?  No, because they’re all topside now. If that was God helping out, he did a pretty shitty job. You wanna talk about hell on earth - ”

“There are worse things in the pit than demons.”

“Like what?”

“This isn’t a good place to explain,” Castiel pauses, frowning. “Something must’ve happened, they’ve stopped moving.”

Dean starts sprinting for the tower. He can feel the markers down below pulsing weakly, he’ll head that direction and -

Castiel grabs his arm and wrenches him to a stop.

“You can’t. It’s too dangerous. Besides, I can move faster without you.”

“But - ”

“We’re wasting time.” With that Castiel heaves Dean upwards with a beat of his wings.

The world around them twists tighter and tighter, and then bursts open again. Dean hits the ground and the wind is knocked out of him. When he’s finally able to gasp some air back into his lungs, he looks around and finds himself back at the field where they’d buried John.

Castiel is gone.

 

* * *

 

 

Moving feels good, better than being trapped.

John almost revels in it; the feel of stretching his legs, making use of their strength instead of straining fruitlessly against his bonds with no hope of escape from the knife. The tunnels are their own kind of trap though - twisting and falling and climbing again, seemingly endless. John loses track of the turns, not entirely sure if Sam is heading towards any specific destination or just following gut instinct to stay ahead of the horde.

There’s another fork in the tunnel ahead, a small alcove of space where three of the paths meet. A sharp tendril of dark smoke shoots out from the left, Sam pivots on the ball of his foot a split second too late, momentum carrying him into tunnel wall, momentarily stunned by the impact. John grabs at Sam’s arm and yanks him to the right. They stumble past the tunnel opening, thick with demon smoke and growing darker by the moment.

Darkness licks at their heels as they run, but the tunnel ahead is mercifully clear.

They keep moving, dodging around the openings to either side, the sound of their gasping breaths drowned out by an inhuman, all-consuming furious shrieking. Sam pushes John ahead, holding one hand out behind as if he could slow the chase by force of will alone.

John glances back, catching him at it again and nearly loses his footing.

Whatever Sam is doing is actually slowing the demon’s advance. Not by much, the barrier is temporary at best and quickly overwhelmed by the demons’ crushing force.

John slows his pace.

Sam yells something, gesturing him on frantically - and then reaches back again. This time the barrier is almost opaque. The swarm hits it with an audible _crack_. John stops running. With the barrier up, the shrieking has died down just enough to hear his own voice.

“So what’s the game?”

Sam is bent over, his hurt hand curled in against his chest and the other one still held out behind him, fingers splayed, palm facing the barrier. “Game, what are you - ? Dad, we have to keep going!”

“Do we?” His voice is steadier than he expected, not as out of breath as he thinks he should be. “Seems like you’ve got it under control.” 

“I can’t hold them much longer. _We have to move_.”

Of course the barrier won’t last. The game is to keep him running right at the edge of his endurance, for as long as they can. But that only works if John believes the lie.

And he doesn’t anymore.

The barrier is cracking, splintering apart around the edges. A large part of him wants to run, to turn heel and let Sam lead him along down the nightmare path to waking up back on the rack.  But the stubborn-bastard part of him refuses to move. It’s the same part of him that won’t let him be the one to pick up that knife, even if it means a break from the games, a break from the rack.

The barrier buckles.

“ _Dad, go now! MOVE!_ ” Sam yells. John takes another involuntary step down the tunnel, but by then it’s too late anyway. Something else is barrelling towards them from the tunnel ahead. They’re trapped. 

He looks back at Sam over his shoulder, his unwilling feet still carrying him forward in halting steps.

The barrier dissolves and Sam disappears along with it like a mirage. In the next instant there’s an explosion, bright enough that he’s momentarily blinded. Something grabs him by the shoulder and wrenches him away.

 

* * *

 

 

Sam wakes up to the distinctive sound of a sawed-off shotgun blast.

“He’s back!” Ruby yells over one shoulder. She’s crouched over him, her knife in one hand and a gun in the other.  

“Good. Tell him to get his ass in here and gimme a hand!” Bobby yells back from the other room.

Sam shakes his head to clear it as Ruby shoves the gun into his hand.

“Ruby, what - ”

But another shotgun blast from the kitchen cuts him off. He whips his head around to the sound of the blast, and it’s not until then he realizes he and Ruby are crouched in the middle of a thick salt circle, and Dean is nowhere to be seen.

“We’ve got a ghost problem,” she explains.

“Sam! Upstairs linen closet - red hex box,” Bobby yells. “It'll be heavy.”

Sam nods, then belatedly realizes he’s not in Bobby’s line of sight. “Got it!”

He takes the stairs two at a time, yanking everything out of the closet until he finds the box. By the time he gets back downstairs, Ruby has swapped out the knife for an iron poker from the fireplace. A shape begins to form just over her shoulder and Sam fires at it one-handed.

Ruby shoots him an irritated look. “Conserve your salt rounds, Rambo. They’re not after me, they’re after you two.”

Bobby’s grabbing stuff out of the hex box, muttering something under his breath and he mixes up what must be a spell. The next one to appear shows up across the room.

“Hiya, Sam.” It’s a woman with shoulder-length brown hair.

“Bobby, what the hell is going on?”

“Not the time, Sam. Shoot her.”

“What, you don’t remember me?” she says. “This is what I looked like before the demon chopped off my hair and went on a murder spree in my body.”

“...Meg?”

“Nice to finally talk to you when I'm not, y’know, choking on my own blood."

 

* * *

 

 

The grave is empty.

Dean hadn’t wanted to look again, but hadn’t been able to stop himself either - to see John healed, even if his soul wasn’t out of the pit yet. It was something, at least. Almost like the hellhounds had never torn him apart, like Dean and Sam hadn’t wrapped his body in a motel bedsheet and left him in a hole six feet deep.

Except now his body wasn’t where they’d left him, and Castiel hasn’t come back.

Dean’s head is still ringing from the rough landing when they got topside, but it’s been a while now and he’s never been all that comfortable with standing around doing nothing. He walks back over to the road, but he knows even before he gets there that chances of hitching a ride are slim. John had chosen his spot carefully - miles from anyone and anything. Quiet.

“Hello?” He calls out, and waits. “Castiel?”

There’s no answer. He shrugs out of his jacket and starts walking back to town. It’ll take a couple hours, but unless Castiel comes back to give him a lift, it’s the only option he’s got. If he can get back to town he’ll grab a car and drive back to Bobby’s, try to figure out what the hell is going on. In the meantime, though -

“Okay, how about, our father, who art in heaven… something something else in heaven. Sorry I don’t know the rest, but can you send Castiel back down here?”

“If he’s not busy, I mean,” he adds, after a second or two.

He doesn’t want to interrupt if Castiel is in the middle of yanking John’s soul from the pit or anything. But all the same, he doesn’t exactly appreciate being left in the middle of nowhere without a clue what was going on.

Still no response, though.

Dean knew there was a reason he’d never bothered to pray before. He keeps walking.

 

* * *

 

 

The girl flickers; appears closer.

“- _choking on my own blood_. Do you know what that felt like?  Of course not. The same demon possessed you, and yet here _you_ are - alive. Fifty words of Latin a little sooner and maybe I still would be too.”

As she speaks, the temperature drops. The front door bangs open and a gust of wind starts to erode the salt line. Ruby’s on the other side of the desk, covering Bobby’s back as he tries to light a fire in the grate, despite the wind.

“I didn’t know - ”

“You didn’t know? You didn’t _want_ to know! You just charged in, slashing and burning. Did you ever think there was a girl in here?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry isn’t good enough!”

The last of the salt line blows away and she has him by the throat. Her grip is bitterly cold, she’s too close for him to get the shotgun up at a good angle. He fires anyway, hoping it’ll catch her in the side, buy him a second. She flickers, but her grip only tightens.

“Sam!” Ruby yells, but she’s cornered by two other spirits.

There’s another shot - but it’s not Sam’s, it comes from the doorway. Sam stumbles back as he’s sprayed with burning salt. Meg vanishes and Sam drops to the floor, gasping and blinking away the dark spots in his vision.

“Dean?”

Bobby yells the final words of the spell and there’s a flash from the fireplace. Wind sweeps through the room, and almost instantly it starts to feel warmer. It’s dark inside, the ghosts must’ve messed with the electric, but there’s plenty of light coming in from the open doorway. Then the lights flicker back on inside.

It’s not Dean at the door though. Similar height and build, wearing an old leather jacket that Sam would recognize anywhere.

“... _Dad?”_

John steps inside and looks around at the broken salt lines, overturned furniture, the toppled stacks of books. His boots are caked with grave dirt, and he’s got a shotgun - the same one they’d buried him with - but his hair and face look oddly clean.

“Someone want to explain to me what the hell is going on?”

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Not too much to say about this one other than I hope you guys enjoy it! I'm also freaking out a little because after this I only have ONE major plot arc to go before the series is done. The end is ~~nigh~~ in sight!


End file.
